The present invention relates generally to cotton harvesters and, more specifically, to an improved row unit drive arrangement for a cotton harvester with transversely adjustable row units.
A typical cotton harvester includes a plurality of transversely spaced row units mounted at the forward end of the harvester frame and including harvesting structure connected to gearboxes mounted on the row unit and connected to a drive train arrangement which is driven from the engine by a fore-and-aft extending drive shaft. The gearboxes on the individual units are normally connected by transverse drive shafts. Drive is provided through the harvester transmission so that harvesting structure speed is synchronized with the forward speed of the harvester to assure that the spindle drums rotate rearwardly at the harvester ground speed to achieve a zero relative velocity between the picking spindles and the cotton plants. The various drive shafts in the conventional arrangement require a considerable amount of space, and clearance must be provided for the fore-and-aft extending drive shafts to permit the row units to move vertically and to facilitate some transverse adjustment of the row units connected to the drive shafts. In addition, the shafts extending transversely between the row units must be disconnected or must utilize a telescoping arrangement to permit transverse movement of the row units relative to each other for maintenance or for changing row spacings. Therefore, the drive system can be relatively complex and inflexible, and can limit the patterns of row units available for the harvest.